From gratitude to twittering turkeys, these ideas are far from boring, and are sure to jump start your classroom writing assignments.

Activity Village: Thanksgiving Stationery Although this Activity Village page does not have any writing prompts, it does have a dozen free printable Thanksgiving stationery templates that will add a bit of whimsy to your Thanksgiving stories. Most of the templates come in three flavors: blank (no lines), lined, and handwriting lines (with a dashed line between each solid line.) Designs include cornucopia, pilgrims, pumpkins, and turkeys.

Build Creative Writing Ideas: Thanksgiving “After hearing the phone ring, you pick it up to talk to the person on the other line. Only, it’s not a person calling at all, it’s the T-Giving turkey! What does the turkey have to say and how do you respond?” There are ten imaginative prompts in this article, and there are five more Thanksgiving lists on the site that are not easily found via the menu navigation. To find them, enter “Thanksgiving” into the site search box in the upper right-hand corner.

Journal Buddies: Elementary Writing About Thanksgiving “Give your students something to be thankful for during Thanksgiving time, with this list of 78 new elementary writing and journal prompts, especially for the holiday. Your students will be inspired to think about the things in their lives they are grateful for, as well as pushed to develop ways to give back to others.” Great list, but I was bothered by the fact that “Thanksgiving” was frequently spelled without proper capitalization.

“Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all.” ~~ William Faulkner ~~ (September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) American writer and Nobel Prize laureate. Click the link to read more quotes on gratitude.